Boomers Will Make for Booming Business

You may already know this, but the US Census Bureau reports, “the share of households headed by Americans born between 1945 – 64 —also known as Boomers — accounted for 39% of American households in 2012.” Additional Census data show that up to 10% of all people in today’s households are aged 75 or older.

According to Alyssa Gerace of the Senior Housing News, “The boomers are, indeed, coming, and while their ranks aren’t flooding communities quite yet, they will—and it will be revolutionary . . .” In her September 13th article, Gerace quoted Dr. Joseph Coughlin, Director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Have no doubt about it: the incoming boomer generation is disruptive, and their vision for their twilight years will be far different than that of their parents.”

As providers of goods and services to this burgeoning industry, it is critical for us to innovate and stay abreast of developments that affect this growing population. With all of American business targeting this marketplace, we have to be smart and recognize that those of us already in this sector have an advantage; we know aging. Seeing others currently in the industry with us, maybe we need to partner with them, rather than viewing them as competition, and leverage our combined efforts — perhaps dramatically increasing our impact. Culling through countless articles on the subject, it seems that Dr. Coughlin’s parting comments in his address at a recent Life Care Services’ summit presentation make the most sense, ““Do not build your structures around the iPhone 5 or the iPad. That’s the ‘new normal’—but it’s only been here for three years. If you build around a given technology, you’ll be left behind. Think about what you want to provide, then bring on technology providers, architects, and developers to help you provide that.”

FloorTech is a nationwide floor covering provider, specializing in Senior Living and Retail facilities – new or occupied.